Trails

The gang at EveryTrail.com has a new feature for all us GPS geeks: Destinations — which gather all the EveryTrail trips for a specific geographic region into a single page. The new stuff refines the Guides project that Trailspotting and…

It’s the 20th anniversary of the Bay Area Ridge Trail, which is celebrating by offering its second annual September through-hike: this year’s trek goes from Castro Valley north to Martinez over five days from Wednesday, Sept. 2, to Sunday. Sept…

Every winter, the shoreline at Año Nuevo State Natural Reserve becomes jammed with amorous elephant seals. They’re all gone by spring but in the summer a few of the males return to shed their hide, which comes off in large…

Shimmering waters of Lake Winnemucca “I can breathe up here.” So said my allergy-prone wife, Melissa, whom I had talked into an “easy” jaunt down to Lake Winnemucca from Carson Pass. It was an odd thing to hear 9,000 feet…

American Discovery Trail starts on the Atlantic Ocean and ends at the Pacific at Point Reyes National Seashore. Every summer a few brave souls attempt to hike the whole distance — and the few who pass our way see some…

You have to earn the privilege of enjoying a Phleger Estate hike. Just getting to the best part of it — a sublime grove of redwoods along the Raymundo and Mount Redondo trails — requires a two-mile out-and-back, either from…

Timms Creek Trail connects the Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail and the Sunset Trail at Big Basin Redwoods State Park. It’s a quiet, secluded, rarely used trail that offers a great escape route if you feel you’re not up for the whole 12…

UPDATE: This blockage has been cleared. (The following is out of date; it’s remaining posted for historical reasons). Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail is blocked about a half-mile west of the headquarters of Big Basin Redwoods State Park. Fortunately there’s a simple detour:…

I had crazy-great weather — sunny and clear with cool breezes — for Sunday’s hike at Henry Coe State Park’s Dowdy Ranch Visitors Center. The trails near Dowdy Ranch, which opened two years ago, are classic Coe: straight up and…